Fox News & the GOPTEA: Cliven who?

Who could have foreseen that a man who claimed on a live Fox News interview that the Obama administration created a “blood moon” as part of some vast left-wing conspiracy just so it could conduct a secret, covert, kill-order night raid against him personally … just might be a little on the whackjob side of irrational?

Who could have seen that a Stetson-toting good ol’ boy who said on Fox News that “I don’t believe in the United States government as even existing” would actually turn out to be seditious?

Who could have known that a “patriotic American rancher” who said on Fox News and most everywhere he was offered a microphone that if the U.S. shot at him he would put women in front of him for protection and then blame the feds for any casualties that he might just be a friggin’ loon?

Seriously, how in the world could anyone *NOT* have seen it? And if you didn’t – and you’re purportedly a responsible member of the media or Congress or the Republican Party – how could you not have at least been curious about exactly who this supposedly near God-like man you were so lavishly promoting was? Used the Google, maybe? Scan the Interwebs? Did it strike anyone at Fox News or in the Republican/TEAbagger party, at any time they were showing this guy proudly waving the flag of the government he doesn’t believe exists and calling him “a modern-day embodiment of everything the Founding Fathers intended,” that maybe – just maybe – you should have vetted him, even a little?

I mean, seriously, the conservative National Review printed an article comparing Cliven Bundy to Mahatma Gandhi. Fox’s Sean Hannity said Bundy was “exactly the kind of man to lead the fight against irresponsible government.”

The thing about all the running away from Cliven Bundy, though, that makes these far right conservatives so petty, pathetic and hypocritical is that what they’re running away from is their own promotion of Bundy’s seditious, violence-inciting, anti-American statements he’d been making … right up until Bundy’s infamous “the Negro” comments and then they couldn’t shitcan their coverage of him fast enough. And then, right on cue, everyone on Fox from Bill O’Reilly to Megan Fox began the “you didn’t see us do what you saw us do” mantra – the trademark Jedi mind-trick of the greatest affront to journalism known to mankind.

After all, you’d think that people who were raising Cliven Bundy to pedestal heights weren’t doing so because they thought that he was a great guy — clearly, they didn’t have a clue who he was, or least if they did, they certainly kept quiet about it to stir up dissent. Because Bundy was, after all, denying the existence of the federal government. So, by extension, he was denying the existence of President Barack Obama. And nothing sends Fox News bobbleheads into a masturbatory frenzy more than the idea of there being no President Barack Obama. No, Fox thought Bundy’s incitement of violence message was swell. But then he “want there” on the race issue, and with an election coming up, Fox had to immediately backpedal and recant, and even go so far as to claim they weren’t supporting Bundy with their nearly 24-7 coverage of his antics and having him as an on-air guest 11 times in three days, and that any claim to the contrary is “left wing conspiracy garbage.”

It wasn’t until after Bundy “Let me tell what else I know about the Negro” tirade in which he advocated the joys of slavery that the far right went back to look at the tape and see that when he said he didn’t believe in the United States government as even existing that that might actually not be a good thing to stand behind in an election year. You know, seeing as how millions of people would be voting for the government of the United States. If the government doesn’t exist, what’s the point of electing any Republicans to change it, after all?

And it’s not like Republicans and TEAbaggers have shown themselves to be the moral champions against racism in the past. Let’s be honest, we’ve all watched right-wingers use literally every racist card in the deck, and then claim liberals were the racists when calling them on it. When you’re a GOP candidate and you tell the audience at a fundraiser that African-Americans are “naturally lazy” and “simply inclined to not work if they can get away with it,” it’s not the people you offended and insulted who are the racists. When you go on national television (ever-so-coincidentally, Fox News again) and say that “black women have too many babies on purpose so they can collect more Welfare money,” you’re not being quoted out of context. When you hold a press conference and announce that the recent statistic showing that Caucasians are now a minority race in the United States and it’s “all because of liberals have been hand-carrying freeloading Mexicans into this country,” the fault does not fall upon the people whose reaction to your comment was “What a racist asshole!”

I’m loving the show over the past few days as conservatives scramble to explain their rabid support of Cliven Bundy as some kind of urban myth stirred up by “the liberal media.” Watching Bill O’Reilly state, outright, that you can’t blame Fox News for allowing not one, not five, but 22 individual commentators on the network to avidly praise Bundy because “Fox News is the only place where you get a variety of opinions.” It’s almost a race to see whose head will explode out of sheer hypocrisy first; O’Reilly for being his usual two-faced, never-at-fault self, or the people in the audience who are screaming “You lying piece of shit!” at their TV screens.

The GOP and it’s media propaganda division will have you believe that it’s mere coincidence that days’ worth of pro-Bundy Twitter tweets and Facebook posts and web pages have suddenly disappeared. The Koch Brothers’ pocket disinformation clatch, Americans for Prosperity deleted dozens social media posts expressing support for Cliven Bundy. Previously, one such page read: “The BLM spent HOW MUCH to round up cattle? ONE MILLION DOLLARS.” As of Friday afternoon, that same URL reads: “This content is currently unavailable.”

So go right ahead, Fox News and Republicans and TEAbaggers; put on your faux-indignation cloaks and cast your “Realitum Reviso” wizard spells. Keep showing live and taped footage of Republicans saying things like “Women don’t deserve equal pay because they don’t work as hard as men,” and “Income inequality is a hoax cooked up by greedy, entitlement-minded poor people,” and “Stand-Your-Ground laws shouldn’t apply to everyone equally because it gives an unfair advantage to minorities.”

We’ll be over here keeping track of just how far down the hypocrisy rabbit-hole you can throw yourselves.